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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DT113876
If God is good and all-powerful, why does suffering exist? If he can stop it but doesn't, he's evil. If he wants to but can't, he's not all-powerful.
Because good and evil are human concepts that don't apply to God, and are relative.
Also, if you had to while away eternity in a grand play, wouldn't you play very hard at times? There wouldn't be much drama if we were all floating around on clouds forever grinning.
Because we live in a fallen world when sin entered. Sometimes suffering brings about redemption in a lot of people. The sun shines after a storm kind of thing. God would be evil if He stopped the suffering that would make you stronger. He can stop it but choses not to for your own good. All suffering has a purpose, just because you do not see it does not make it worthless. Just worthless in our puny understanding.
All things will be revealed someday.
Ah, the old "fallen world" and sin Moderator cut: deleted
Yes! The world fell because a rib woman was conned into eating a magic fruit by a talking snake. Can't anyone see how a Creator of a universe would be powerless to deal with such a calamity?
Exactly. The demand to disprove God (while it can be adequately met, in respect of biblegod, at least) is back to front. The existence of this god needs to be demonstrated, not to be believed true until totally disproved (to those who would never accept that no matter how well you proved it) Which is the whole argument - to make conditions so unmeetable that the debate is effectively trashed before it starts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144
I don't believe in atheists therefore there are no atheists. End of argument, carry on.
That is of course the other side of the argument. Atheists by all evidence do exist, despite any denials by our poster (genuine or rhetorical). It is all rhetorical trickery designed to fool people into believing the theist has made a case where in fact none has been made. That there is no sound evidence for the existence of God means that the theist had to make this apparent claim that there is equally no sound evidence for the existence of atheists. It is of course a silly argument and janelle knows that as well as we do. It is just the old point -scoring by any means.
Thus theist apologetics uses trickery, falsity, misdirection, misquoting, misrepresentation and irrelevance and the method of trying to score cheap tactical points (especially in getting into personalities) is seen time and again.
We also see here what shakespeare called 'a jade's trick', in making a point and then asserting that there is no effective reply to it. That of course never works, but the habitually dishonest never cease to attempt to use it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
Because good and evil are human concepts that don't apply to God, and are relative.
Also, if you had to while away eternity in a grand play, wouldn't you play very hard at times? There wouldn't be much drama if we were all floating around on clouds forever grinning.
Translation into English from Theist 'Good is whatever God says it is. God can do whatever He likes. What are you going to do about it?' Love it. It is one of the top two deconverters there are.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-31-2012 at 03:31 AM..
Us theists are notorious for consistently making 2 errors that make us look like idiots. These errors being:
1. Challenging anyone to prove God does not exist.
2. Bringing evolution into the debate,especially with no knowledge of what Evolution is.
To challenge anyone to prove God does not exist, is a futile effort. It is no different from a non-theist challenging us to prove the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" does not exist.
We can't.
Nobody can prove the FSM does not exist, but that is not proof or even evidence that it exists. The fact somebody can not prove God does not exist, proves nothing and is not evidence He does exist. It is a nonsensical challenge that looks intelligent.
Evolution is one of the most misunderstood things by many of us. there is no such thing as a theory of evolution. Evolution is an established fact and predates Darwin by many centuries and is the basis of animal husbandry that has resulted in the large variety of live stock and cultivated plants today. The Theory is about the origin of species. There are many theories about how so many species came to be. Darwin proposed it to be the result of "Natural Selection" and this somehow ended up being called the "Theory of evolution" by the General population. But evolution is a long established fact and not a Theory.
I may be wrong but I do not believe Darwin ever even mentioned evolution in his Theory "Origin of Species" Most of us theists that attack Darwin have never even read his Book.
THat is a Very good point. When I was a teen, we were forbidden by our Babtist church from reading that book. I obtained a copy (via mail order) and read it anyway. When I confronted someone (an adult) about it, he admitted he never read it and never would read it! When I found out that what he claimed about the book was totally innacurate, I started wondering what else he and his church might be wrong about. Here he talked like an expert, when in reality, he was not.
talking to people in our small town, I found the high school biology teacher had read it and was very well versed in it, my father claimed to have read it, and I read it. I believed taht there were probably others, but I never found anyone else who actually read it. And since our social circle was very limited to mainly church members, that was probably why.
My grandmother hated it, claimed it was . like all science, "the work of the devil." When I signed up for anthropology classes in college, and my mom caught wind of it, she said "They teach evolution and that is SOooooooo Sinfulllllllll..." Since then, she and I have had Zero conversations about science, religion or philosophy.
To reiterate my point about the non-existence of "The Devil!!!!" Let me again point out that nowhere in the reputable realms of science or medicine, does any evidence at all exist for "demonic possession" That does not include reports from uneducated witch doctors in Haiti or faith healers in Mississippi or unlicensed surgeons in the Phillipines. That means that there is ZERO scientific evidence for it.
Which sadly, is how much scientific evidence we have for the existence of "god" as well. We do not say "Hmmmmm we cannot explain waht is happening here so therefore it must be god" Instead we admit "We do not yet know what is causing something but we will someday" We do not assume that there is a god behind everything. While god belief may become a harmless panacea for some, the institutionalization and forcing of religions has celarly done more harm to individuals and society as a whole than it is worth.
On the Atheist side, what proof would make you sit up and say: "I was wrong. God exists and Jesus died for our sins. I'm going down to get baptized right now."
and on the Religious side, what would make you sit up and say: "I was wrong. Religion is wrong. Your argument is air tight, sir. I'm going to go shake Dawkins' hand."
Can anyone provide me with the parameters we're using to prove or disprove our viewpoint?
Us theists are notorious for consistently making 2 errors that make us look like idiots. These errors being:
1. Challenging anyone to prove God does not exist.
2. Bringing evolution into the debate,especially with no knowledge of what Evolution is.
To challenge anyone to prove God does not exist, is a futile effort. It is no different from a non-theist challenging us to prove the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" does not exist.
We can't.
Nobody can prove the FSM does not exist, but that is not proof or even evidence that it exists. The fact somebody can not prove God does not exist, proves nothing and is not evidence He does exist. It is a nonsensical challenge that looks intelligent.
Evolution is one of the most misunderstood things by many of us. there is no such thing as a theory of evolution. Evolution is an established fact and predates Darwin by many centuries and is the basis of animal husbandry that has resulted in the large variety of live stock and cultivated plants today. The Theory is about the origin of species. There are many theories about how so many species came to be. Darwin proposed it to be the result of "Natural Selection" and this somehow ended up being called the "Theory of evolution" by the General population. But evolution is a long established fact and not a Theory.
I really appreciate this. But don't fall into the same rhetoric that anti-evolutionists do because of their, which you rightly point-out, misunderstanding of evolution, as well as science in general. Theories and facts (in science)are not different levels on some hierarchy of certainty. Evolution is both a Theory AND fact. I can't count how many times this has been reiterated on this forum. Evolution is a very robust Scientific Theory that provides a working explanation for the facts - the observations of evolution, as well as making very precise predictions of observations that were later discovered or have yet to be discovered. Scientific Theories aren't reduced somehow to mere facts - observations in science, when confirmed, the explanation of the observations remains the explanation of the observation. They are two completely different aspects. For example, Internal Combustion Engine Theory is always called Theory, because it explains how and why IC engines work. How about Speaker Building Theory, one of my hobbies. Or even Music Theory. One wouldn't say, 'Music is just a Theory, it is not a fact." That just doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that it is both.
Quote:
I may be wrong but I do not believe Darwin ever even mentioned evolution in his Theory "Origin of Species" Most of us theists that attack Darwin have never even read his Book.
As Allen Ludden used to say, "roughly a form of the word."
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Such as the toilet paper faerie. Somehow the spent roll just gets changed out for a new one.
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